New Bomb Turks

You know what band got me into punk rock? This is going to sound cliché, I know, but Green Day. 1994, College Station, Texas: I was a little kid bored of Beck's "Loser," disenchanted with Dave Matthews Band's "What Would You Say" and almost pulled my hair out every time Blues Traveler's "Run Around" would hit my local radio station 103.9 The X. Billie Joe Armstrong's loser anthem "Longview" was what got me into punk. The whole "F word" being bleeped out on the radio mystified me, and I knew I had to have their major label debut. Long story short, I love Green Day and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

What's my point? It's that something I had no idea existed, has changed my entire outlook on music. I still find myself listening to "Pulling Teeth," "Chump," and "In the End" to this very day, and you know why? It's good music. The guitars are kept simple, the lyrics are filled with frustration and angst, and I'm reminded of where my interest in punk began. Before that, though, another band was coming out with a completely different album only a year earlier, and here's where New Bomb Turks come in.

This band's debut is perhaps one of the most unknown, yet greatest punk albums of all time. Appropriately titled !!Destroy-Oh-Boy!!, the New Bomb Turks had redefined garage punk entirely. The first line of the album, "I had a friend, he said he was an artist," sets the tone for the mayhem that shortly follows. Where do I start with this band's debut? The drums sound like a train off the tracks, the guitars are fuzzy and distorted, the vocals are grainy, harsh and strained and the bass is thick and prominent in every song.

Sound like a good punk album? It is, and it gets even better. My all-time favorites by this band are from this album and Eric Davidson couldn't have done it better. "Runnin' on Go," "Suckerpunch" and "I Want My Baby Dead" are quite possibly three of the greatest punk songs never heard. The first two start off with a thundering bassline before launching into an all-out assault on the ears for a good minute and a half, and the third pretty much speaks for itself.

This album has left my ears ringing ever since I picked it up quite some time ago. !!Destroy-Oh-Boy!! made me want to buy every album by the Turks and I haven't been let down since. Sure, those later albums weren't as furious, but who could possibly recreate the genius of this garage punk debut? I cannot stress enough how important !!Destroy-Oh-Boy!! is to punk rock. It's loud, obnoxious and rivals pretty much every band claiming to be punk today. If you're into garage punk and are looking for something to bash your head into a wall to, you've come to the right place. New Bomb Turks set the bar for early `90s punk, but still remain sadly unknown by many.

Anyone into Guitar Wolf, Supersuckers or the Riverboat Gamblers would do well to pick this record up.